


If I were you

by Gavranica



Category: Maleficent (Disney Movies)
Genre: Bickering, F/M, Mild Smut, Old Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25975183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gavranica/pseuds/Gavranica
Summary: Insinuating that a raven is stupid is never a good idea. A near-death experience is not an excuse. Inspired by the second movie's novelization (no cat this time).
Relationships: Diaval/Maleficent (Disney), Percival/Shrike (Disney: Maleficent)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 158





	If I were you

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [На твоём месте (If I were you)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26110981) by [fandom Disney and DreamWorks 2020 (fandom_Disney_and_DreamWorks)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_Disney_and_DreamWorks/pseuds/fandom%20Disney%20and%20DreamWorks%202020), [the_nameless_one](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_nameless_one/pseuds/the_nameless_one)



> "I like the new look. And I was thinking-"  
> "Nasty habit," Maleficent said in her cool, even voice. "You should stop."  
> Diaval ignored the Dark fey's snarky retort and pushed on. "I was thinking that we do the bear thing from now on. I think we would loom good together, prowling the Moors-"  
> "I don't prowl", Maleficent said, stopping Diaval mid-sentence.
> 
> \- Maleficent: Mistress of evil novelization, by Elisabeth Rudnick
> 
> (After this part, Maleficent shuts Diaval up by turning Arabella into a woman).

__________________________________

Maleficent observed the festivities from one of a few balconies that haven't been destroyed or damaged in the battle. 

She had retreated here for a moment of peace and quiet, needing it desperately to gather her thoughts and process at least a fraction of life-changing events that happened in a matter of days.   
However, with one Dark fey or another constantly swiping the air, peace and quiet were suddenly not anymore easily obtained by simply retreating to a location of high altitude. Borra flew close by at least five times, pointedly staring at her. Udo seemed to have had an idea of landing next to her at some point, but for some reason, apparently changed his mind quickly when he got a closer glance, the clever fellow.

Thankfully, all other Dark fey kept the respectable distance. 

Down below, Aurora danced in her husband's arms. 

Maleficent had to remind herself that the reasons for being angry at the poor boy were quite nonexistent. 

Well, now. One challenge at a time. And perhaps, the most urgent of challenges was to determine who, among the sudden myriad of supposed allies, was truly trustworthy, and who might present a threat under a mask of friendship.

"Do you think that Lickspittle's change of heart is a little bit...sudden?" She asked. 

Perched on a balustrade, Diaval was silent. He was in the middle of preening, and he didn't seem to be inclined to show that he had heard her at all. Which irritated Maleficent to no end, because she knew too well that he could express his opinon very clearly even in his raven form. She knew about two hundreds of his different vocalizations, his croaks and caws, clicks and purrs and chirrups. Not to mention how expressive he was with his body language. He obviously chose to blatantly ignore her at the moment.

One would think that he'd be more appreciative, after everything that happened lately. She told him she missed him, for goodness' sake. Told him loud and clear, right in front of everybody, for friends and foes to hear, which is something even Aurora (whom they had just, by the way, witnessed being married away) never heard being admitted in public; yet here he is, rubbing his wings over his head and his beak over his tail feathers, not giving a wallerbog's blob for her state of mind.

Leave it to Diaval to be a single creature in the Moors, Ulstead and Preceforest to be completely unperturbed by the fact she had just died and rose again as a phoenix. Everybody else, with a notable exception of Aurora, seemed to observe her in the same manner that one would a barrel of inflammable poisonous gas. But Diaval was sitting next to her, cleaning the feathers on his butt. No care in the world.

She flicked her elegant hand, and in a whiff of black smoke, he was in his wingless human form, still perched on a balcony rail, some ninety feet from the ground. She hoped he would sway and panic a little, but no such luck; he remained crouched on a balustrade without as much as a tremble of a feather. Which meant he had expected her to turn him. Which meant he knew she would want to hear him speak. Which meant he had ignored her on purpose. Which meant he had played her to do exactly as he wanted without having to ask for himself. Again. And folks considered her manipulative.

"I don't know, mistress. I'm not supposed to think", he answered with an indifferent expression.

"What are you prattling about?"

"Oh, nothing, mistress. Must be my lack of coherent thoughts showing."

"It has been a very long, very tiresome day, Diaval. I would reconsider testing my patience further if I were you", she whispered coldly. 

"If you were me, mistress, you would be throwing a hissy fit at the person who insulted your intelligence and shoved you away, after you spent days being literally the only soul in existence who firmly believed in the said person's innocence."

"If I were you, I wouldn't pester the said person with my foolish oversensitivity and I would be happy that they are alive!"

"If you were me, mistress, you would perhaps realize that it is possible to be both overjoyed for someone not dying and devastated over being excluded from their presence."

"Excluded? If I were you, I would have in that bird mind of mine that the said person publicly announced that they missed you, which is something they never did for anybody, and yet you chose to be an unbearable needy prick!"

"If I were you, mistress, I would reevaluate my definition of needy." He finally turned to face her, and added quietly: "I missed you, too. Unbearably so."

Borra glided above them, giving them a quizzical look in passing. Diaval responded with an uncharacteristically hostile glare. Maleficent, as notoriously bas as she was at interpreting other people's emotional states, still caught that.

"If I were you, silly bird, I wouldn't think I have to compete with anybody for my mistress' attention." 

Diaval answered with an incredulous snort. His hair fell over his eyes, but didn't quite hide that glimmering, deep blackness which made Maleficent weak in her knees way too often. 

"If I were you", she continued, stepping a bit closer to him,"I would remember that the first thing your mistress did when she approached the battlefield, even before she had full visibility, was to save you from your predicament."

"Oh, so I was the first thing that was in your mind, now?"

"You and Aurora."

"And a little bit of murderous revenge."

"I cannot argue that."

"You must have hit your head very hard indeed, if you agree with me on anything without a fight, mistress."

"You are just trying to make me feel guilty. I have just literally rose from the dead and married my daughter off, and you are nagging at me with trivialities."

"And you dismiss me as a complete irrelevance by disregarding how I feel about your actions towards me."

"By my actions, you mean empowering you, saving your life, fulfilling your wish of being a bloody bear..."

"Doing right by me at one moment doesn't give you right to insult me and shun me at another. Now you're emotionally blackmailing me, really."

"And what are you doing, pouting like a juvenile nestling because of some silly tactless thing I might have uttered in a moment of one of the most tumultuous events in my life?"

"I've learned from the best", he shrugged. Crouched on that rail, hunched, with black clothing rippling on the breeze, his human form never mirrored his true self so accurately. "Besides, mistress, it can't really be helped, can it? I am hardly capable of thinking. I am trying hard to quit trying at all, as you requested. I can hardly comprehend the words that come out of my mouth. It's mostly gibberish, mistress. You shouldn't spend a moment of your precious time pondering on it, mistress."

"For someone with such kind, sensitive heart, you can have quite a poisonous tongue."

"Oh, no. Just trying to obey you, as always, mistress."

"All right", Maleficent sighed heavily, her hand snaking around his shoulders and pulling him very gently to lean on her. They rarely exchanged affectionate touches in public - well, never, actually, unless she counted petting him in his raven form - but this was not an ordinary day, she had already broken one of her own rules when she uttered that famous 'I missed you' in front of Aurora, Phillip and goodness knows how many onlookers, and they had some semblance of privacy up here, save the occasional Dark fey sprinting through the air. "Never mind the loss of lives, my own included. Never mind me suddenly being burdened with hundreds of tribemates who want me to be their leader. Never mind us seeing our daughter married to a new life. Never mind it all. Your feelings were hurt."

"I do come off as a needy prick when you put it that way."

"You are. But you are marginally correct. I did use you as a release for my frustration. As I do often, true, but you never complain about that, silly bird." Her hands squeezed both of his shoulders gently.

"I do not usually mind. But you know well you should never insult a raven's intelligence."

"Vain creatures."

"That we are."

"Am I absolved, then? May we continue our conversation in a civilized, adult manner?

"I am not yet certain", he said, and tilted his head ever so subtly. So invitingly.

Maleficent quickly scanned the surroundings. No prying eyes at the moment. Up here, they were almost safe from view. And even if they weren't...she was tired of hiding. 

She leaned in and kissed Diaval's exposed neck. She was rewarded with a slight shiver of his entire body and the grip of his hands on the rail. 

"And now?", she murmured in his neck. 

"Perhaps", he whispered hoarsely. "Careful, mistress. This isn't our nest in the Moors. What happened to 'never in public' rule? Someone might get a silly idea that you harbor some sort of foolish sentimentality towards my humble person."

"We can tell them we share a strictly physical relationship", she responded, nuzzling in his neck more and causing him to sway dangerously where he crouched.

"Aurora will never believe." He arched his neck further, allowing her better access. She took the advantage and kissed him below his ear. He let out a desperate little moan.

"She had five years of watching us rather closely. I would be very worried about her perceptiveness if she hadn't figured us out yet."

"Does that mean that you are finally ready to admit to our fledgling that we don't share the nest only for warmth and some phylosophical debating before sleep?" 

She pulled him back from the rail and he landed unceremoniously on the balcony, stumbling backwards. She caught him before he could hit his head on the stone wall and wrapped him in her wings, pulling him close and shielding them from view. He took her face in his hands, warm and calloused and gentle, and leaned his forehead on hers. 

"I truly missed you", she whispered. "I was not myself without you. Like losing my wings all over again." 

He didn't answer, but his breathing was ragged and his eyes were feverish. 

"If I had you at my side, I wouldn't succumb to darkness so easily", she admitted, to him and to herself. She might have gotten her physical wings back five years ago, but she still needed him to be her conscience, her voice of reason, her consolation, her calmness; forever her wings in spirit, if not in body. And she knew she hurt him by not showing openly how much, and in which way, she cared for him; she knew he doubted his own self-worth because of that, that he feared she saw him as unworthy, that he even thought she would be ashamed of him. He never told her any of that, he always said that her insisting on absolute discreteness was perfectly fine with him and he made jokes about it when they were alone in each other's arms, but she knew him too well. The opportunist that he was, he was taking what he could, believing he could not have - or did not deserve to have - something more.

And now she appeared with several dozens of powerful allies of her own kind. Of course he was overly sensitive to any hint of being rejected. The foolish bird. That would not do at all.

She pulled him in a kiss. Caution be damned. Her wings provided some privacy from the people below them, but did absolutely nothing for a winged person that might fly over their heads. Well, she will worry about that later. This was an emergency, for both of them. He needed reasurrance, validation, he needed to be needed, and she did need him badly, the absolute certainty of his loyalty and love and devotion, the one person who believed in her no matter what. 

"Mistress", he moaned, "we're outside..."

She pushed him inside,through the balcony door, not bothering to look where exactly they ended up once they were inside. It might have been a broom closet or the chambers of the king himself for all that she cared. 

Oh, she would regret this later, when the heat of the moment subsides. Her resevations about open admittance of her feelings were only a part of the reason why she insisted that the exact nature of their relationship remains unclear to anyone who asks. The other part was that she feared for him, feared of her enemies going for him if they realize just how vulnerable he made her. It was bad enough that hiding her love for Aurora would be pointless; the child let her with no choice in the matter. But Diaval she could control. She would not walk around with yet another piece of her heat exposed if she had any word in it.

But now, if only for this moment, she let go of those fears. She had just died and came alive again. She was a bloody phoenix, for goodness' sake, and if anyone wants to try their luck and going for her heart, they are too stupid to live anyway. In fact, she let go not only those fears; she forgot, for a moment, all burden that fell on her shoulders in such short time. She forgot the grief over the lives lost and destroyed, the guilt, the apprehension of what was to come, the sorrow over seeing Beastie leave their nest, the memory of cold nothingness when her own life was leaving her. She forgot everything as the glimmering blackness of his eyes filled her entire vision.

And so she hushed him with her lips, tongue and hands, stumbling onto the floor with him and freeing him of a good deal of his constricting clothes, without a care if someone might enter the room and see, while his hands traveled under her robes and pulled them up over her hips. 

"Mistress, someone might..."

"Hush now. Later", she growled and bit him on the side of his neck, just short of drawing blood, just as she knew he adored. The response was expected and immediate. He let out a growl of his own and, swiftly but ever careful of her wings, he rolled on top of her and grinned wolfishly. She always thought she must look silly like that, with her wings splayed on the floor behind her and her legs spread apart for him, but the look of awe and ferocious hunger on Diaval's face always managed to dissuade her of that notion. 

"As my mistress wants", he kissed her neck, then lower, and lower, and she allowed herself to be blissfully joyful, to be worshipped by this beautiful soul, and after she comes undone at his hands, she will worship him. 

But since all good things last too shortly, soon they lay together, Diaval again wrapped in the protective cocoon of Maleficent's wings, their racing hearts slowing down, the fog clearing from their eyes, and Maleficent became aware that a winged shadow might have hovered a moment too long at the balcony before disappearing. 

Borra will prove to be either a great ally, or a great thorn in her side. He made her worried about Diaval's very precarious future position among the Dark fey. Borra will accept Maleficent as a leader, there was no doubt about that, but that meant he will, naturally, be her second in command. As he should be. But if he thought she would not have her raven at her side, that anybody other than Diaval would be her advisor, her shadow and her single absolutely trusted confidant, he was in for a huge surprise. And it wasn't just Borra. All other Dark fey yet had to get to know Diaval, let alone to trust him. He wasn't one of them; they hadn't witnessed him proving his worth; he was a bird carrying a human skin, and she sensed he would have a tough time earning his place among them. And she would not do him a favour if she stood up on his behalf, claiming him protected and untouchable. He would stand no chance of earning their respect then.   
That was a battle he will have to fight himself, for himself. And knowing him, he might interpret the absence of her intervention as a lack of support. 

Unconsciously, she pulled him closer, embraced him tighter.

"My dear mistress", he nibbled on her earlobe, "I sense your heart is heavy again. I fear I might have failed in my attempt of easing your mind."

"Nonsense. This was a first moment of true ..." she eyed him suspiciously, "Wait. Wait. Did you...did you perform that entire pity party on the balcony in order to distract me from what was troubling me?" 

He smiled innocently. "Why, mistress, what kind of manipulative schemer do you take me for? No, of course not...not entirely." 

"Ah."

"But partially? Yes, absolutely."

"You devious trickster, you." She trailed a sharp talon down his jaw line, flashing her fangs in a predatory grin. "Sometimes I suspect that you are the true master in our relationship, and you are using your cunning ways to trick me into believing that I am in control."

"I merely know you well", he kissed her finger when she ran it over his lips. "How could I not, when I am yours and you are mine. I seem to remember you admitting that when you put this on my finger." He rose his right hand, on which he carried the black ring in shape of raven's skull; the same ring she used to carry herself, and gave it to him after Aurora's coronation, in a very private, very vulnerable and very heated moment. That was all she needed to considered them as married as she would ever get.

"Well, since I benefit greatly from your mischief, I'm going to let it slide." She unwrapped him from the shelter of her wings, and he rolled away with a grumble of protest. "Up, now. Someone might come looking for us if we are absent for too long."

"Oh, never worry. If my eyes weren't deceiving me, that mangy-winged, hygienically challenged new friend of yours already came looking at the balcony while we were occupied. I trust he will gladly inform anybody who asks that you are still here and accounted for."

"Oh, wonderful." She rolled her eyes. That much about being discreet. But, again, as Diaval often would say, anybody who spent some time seeing them together could guess they were a bit more than a mistress and a servant. 

"Well, mistress, I did try to..."

"I regret nothing", she cut him of with a grin. "Every proper ruler needs a consort, after all."

He made a mockingly scandalized face. But she knew him well enough to see through his joking manner and detect a hint of sorrow in the curve of his lopsided smile, in the arc of his eyebrows. 

_I am sorry, my dear, overly patient bird. You deserve so much better than this. One day, I will do right by you. One day, I will be brave enough to stand before everybody who cares to listen and tell them that you are my beloved, my soulmate. One day._

"We shouldn't be away from Beastie this long. I am still not convinced that the entirety of the present crowd has only peaceful intentions in mind." She said, starting to fasten the elaborate buttons on his tunic. "Which leads me to my original question. Do you think that Lickspittle..."

The door to the room they occupied (an unused bedroom, from the looks of it) suddenly burst open. Maleficent's green magic came alive in her hands, but Diaval caught her hand before she could incinerate the unfortunate intruders. Which was a good thing, she realized when she recognized the pair that stumbled inside and froze at the sight of mostly naked Maleficent and semi-dressed Diaval. The pair consisted of the handsome general of King John's army whose name Maleficent forgot, and a jungle fey whom Maleficent remembered as Shrike, a respected warrior. Judging by their state of undress, they were here on the same business as Maleficent and Diaval, and they started the said business already on their way here.

"Apologies", the general croaked out. Despite his dark complexion, he seemed to have paled considerably. Shrike, however, merely grinned shamelessly and gave Maleficent and Diaval a conspirative wink.

"No need", Diaval spoke swiftly before Maleficent could say something that might trigger another altercation. "We were just on our way out. My, my, how weddings have that effect on people, do they not? Your gown, mistress - never mind that, we'll fasten it properly outside - we better take the aerial exit, eh? Have a nice...well, see you later!" And he took Maleficent by the hand and steered her towards the balcony. 

"Er", the general sounded like a very big fish out of water, "perhaps...we would be grateful if...we weren't intending to..."

"Not to worry, general Percival", Diaval's conspiratory grin mirrored Shrike's, "as long as you don't talk, we will not either."

With that, Maleficent allowed herself to be escorted back to the balcony, where Diaval carefully closed the glass door behind them. 

"Well, they surely are not wasting any time either", he chuckled, peeking inside. Maleficent let out an exasperated sigh, but had to smile at the ease with which he handled the situation. 

"Let's fly." She flicked her fingers, and in a whiff of smoke, his original form let out a happy 'carrr' and soared in the air. She followed. Tomorrow, she will take the Dark fey children to fly above the Moors, its mountains and rivers and grasslands, as was Conall's dream. But today, she will celebrate a new chance at life in a way she did once before, and her heart called for her to do it again.

She soared to the sky with Diaval.


End file.
